The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1Hume, Allan Octavian
Philosophy
The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1
Hume, Allan Octavian
Birds -- India; Birds -- Nests
Writing again this year (1874) he says:--"I have only found two more
nests this year, and both in the last week of April; the one contained
three partially incubated eggs, the other three young birds. These
nests were at Gielle, at an elevation of about 2500 feet. As a rule,
these birds nest in open country, immediately adjoining moist thickly
wooded ravines, in which they feed, and take refuge if disturbed from
the nest. The nest is usually placed on sloping ground, more or less
concealed by overhanging herbage, and is composed, according to my
experience, of dry grass sparingly lined with fibres. It is large; one
I measured _in situ_ was 8 inches in height and 7 inches in diameter;
the vertical diameter of the cavity was 4 inches and the horizontal 3½
inches. I have not yet found more than three eggs or young ones in any
nest."
Dr. Scully remarks of this bird in Nipal:--"It lays in May and June;
two nests, taken on the 30th May and 6th June, were large loosely-made
pads, not domed, and with the egg-cavity saucer-shaped, each nest
contained three pure white eggs."
The eggs of this species are long, and at times narrow, ovals, pure
white and fairly glossy, but occasionally almost glossless, without
any marks or spottings.
In length they vary from 1·0 to 1·2, and in breadth from 0·73 to 0·85,
but the average of twenty eggs is about 1·11 by nearly 0·8.
133. Xiphorhamphus superciliaris (Blyth). _The Slender-billed
Scimitar Babbler_.
Xiphorhamphus superciliaris (_Blyth), Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 33; _Hume,
Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 406.
The Slender-billed Scimitar Babbler, according to Mr. Hodgson's notes,
breeds in Sikhim, at elevations of 3000 to 6000 feet, during the
months of May and June. The nest is a large globular one, composed of
dry bamboo-leaves and green grass, intermingled and lined with fine
roots and fibres. The entrance, which is about 2 to 2·5 inches in
diameter, is at one end. A nest containing four eggs, obtained on the
12th June, measured about 7 inches in diameter externally, and it
was placed in the crown of a stump from 2 to 3 feet from the ground.
Sometimes the nests are placed in tufts of high grass or in thick
bushes, but never at any great elevation above the ground. They lay
three or four eggs, which are pure white, and one of which is figured
as a broad oval, measuring 0·95 by 0·7.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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